Pedagogies+101

Pedagogies 101:

__What is PBL all about?__

 * Your learning becomes active in the sense that you discover and work with content that you determine to be necessary to solve the problem. **ie: you decide what you learn!**
 * Your teacher acts as facilitator and mentor, **rather than a source of "solutions."**

__Benefits__

 * **Examine and try out what you know**
 * **Discover what you need to learn**
 * Develop your social skills for achieving higher performance in teams
 * Improve your communications skills
 * State and defend positions with evidence and sound argument
 * ie: Self-Intiative!**

__Suggested steps in PBL__
-**Identify** the problem. -**Understand** the problem. -**Structure** the problem.
 * 1) Explore the Issue**

-Team-members capabilities, **strengths and weaknesses.** -**Contextual knowledge.
 * 2) List "What do we know?"**

3) Write out the Problem statement in your own words** -**Identify** main problem. -Team's agreement on the main problem.

-List all, then order them from strongest to weakest. -Solutions may **combine** to form new solutions.
 * 4) List out possible solutions**

-Research on **new information** needed for each solutions. -Possible sources (websites, books, experts). -Assign research tasks.
 * 5) List "What do we NEED to know?"**

-Concrete actions.** -Meeting deadlines.
 * 6) List actions with a timeline

-**State** clearly both the problem and your conclusion. -Summarize the **process you used, options considered, difficulties encountered.**
 * 7) Submit solution**

-Analyse feedbacks and comments. -**Improve** the solution.
 * 8) Review**


 * adapted from []

a) Definition:

 * Collaborative learning is an educational approach to teaching and learning that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product
 * Collaborative learning is based on the idea that learning is a naturally social act in which the participants talk among themselves. It is through the talks that learning occurs
 * In Collaborative learning, learners have the opportunity to converse with peers, present and defend ideas, exchange diverse beliefs, question other conceptual frameworks, and be actively engaged

b) Elements of Collaborative Learning:

 * **Positive interdependence:** Team members are obliged to rely on one another to achieve the goal. If any team members fail to do their part, everyone suffers consequences. (Eg. In Singapore's Junior Colleges, everyone is required to do a project in JC1 and every team member will achieve the same score. So, do not sabotage your teammates!)
 * **Individual accountability.** All students in a group are held accountable for doing their share of the work and for mastery of all of the material to be learned
 * **Face-to-face promotive interaction.** Although some of the group work may be parcelled out and done individually, some must be done interactively, with group members providing one another with feedback, challenging one another's conclusions and reasoning, and perhaps most importantly, teaching and encouraging one another
 * **Appropriate use of collaborative skills.** Students are encouraged and helped to develop and practice trust-building, leadership, decision-making, communication, and conflict management skills
 * **Group processing.** Team members set group goals, periodically assess what they are doing well as a team, and identify changes they will make to function more effectively in the future

c) Benefits of Collaborative learning as quoted from []:

 * 1) Develops higher level thinking skills
 * 2) Builds self esteem in students
 * 3) Develops social interaction skills
 * 4) Promotes positive race relations
 * 5) Encourages student responsibility for learning
 * 6) Students develop responsibility for each other
 * 7) Fosters and develops interpersonal relationships
 * 8) Creates a more positive attitude toward teachers, principals and other school personnel by students and creates a more positive attitude by teachers toward their students
 * 9) Classroom anxiety is significantly reduced
 * 10) Test anxiety is significantly reduced
 * 11) Collaborative learning activities promote social and academic relationships well beyond the classroom and individual course

1) Think-Pair-Share:

 * Step 1: <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">The instructor poses a question, preferable one demanding analysis, evaluation, or synthesis, and gives students about a minute to think through an appropriate response
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 2: Students then turn to a partner and share their responses
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 3: Student responses can be shared within a larger group, or with an entire class during a follow-up discussion
 * ** Conclusion: The caliber of discussion is enhanced by this technique, and all students have an opportunity to learn by reflection and by verbalization **

2) Three Step Interview:

 * Step 1: S<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">tudents form dyads; one student interviews the other
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 2: Students switch roles
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 3: The dyad links with a second dyad
 * ** Conclusion: This four-member learning team then discusses the information or insights gleaned from the initial paired interview through ice-breakers or a team-building exercises. This structure can also be used also to share information such as hypotheses or reactions to a film or article **

3) Simple Jigsaw:

 * Step 1: T<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">he faculty member divides an assignment or topic into four parts with all students from each learning team volunteering to become "experts" on one of the parts
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 2: Experts team then work together to master their fourth of the material and also to discover the best way to help others learn it
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 3: All experts then reassemble in their home learning teams where they teach the other group members.
 * ** See Also: Term 1's Crime and Punishment. We split into groups to discuss readings of crime and punishment, swap teams, teach others from other teams, learn from others from other teams, then reassemble back into our original groups, well-prepared. **

4) Numbered Heads Together:

 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 1: Members of learning teams, usually composed of four individuals, count off: 1, 2, 3, or 4
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 2: The instructor poses a question that usually requires some higher order thinking skills
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 3: Students discuss the question, making certain that every group member knows the agreed upon answer
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS', cursive;">Step 4: The instructor calls a specific number and the team members originally designated that number during the count off respond as group spokespersons. Because no one knows which number the teacher will call, all team members have a vested interest in understanding the appropriate response
 * ** Conclusion: Students benefit from the verbalization, and the peer coaching helps both the high and the low achievers. Class time is usually better spent because less time is wasted on inappropriate responses and because all students become actively involved with the material **